


A lack of colour

by mofumanju



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Character Death, Color Blindness, M/M, Romantic Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-24
Updated: 2017-03-24
Packaged: 2018-10-10 03:28:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10428123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mofumanju/pseuds/mofumanju
Summary: In which Keito loves Eichi, and this love turns his world black and white. Wondering if a world without colours is worth of Eichi's love well, that's not even questionable. Of course it is.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Ah, I just wanted to make you all suffer, I'm sorry.   
> I suffered too, if it helps to feel better.   
> No well, okay, this was written for the Enstars Bigbang after I changed plot at least three times, but I loved writing it. I really hope you'll enjoy the reading. ♥

The canvas in front of him is still white, blank like his mind in that very moment; free from the weight of thoughts that, otherwise, would make just holding a brush an hard task. Keito smiles, taking the distances, tracing the first lines, the lead of his pencil that breaks the purity of the canvas and turns it in a cocoon ready to crack open, and let a butterfly spread its wings with colours. It’s just a thin line, a thread of grey dividing white in two, there where water will pour and the sky will eat the empty space - if he could, he’d even paint the wind brushing his hair, but there are things that you can’t draw, things that would be too presumptuous to even try to frame. 

He takes a look at the world below his feet, the city eating the green of fields he hasn’t stepped on since long, covering the chirping of birds with the sound of traffic, car horns and motors rumbling and disturbing the calm. The ocean is the only thing here that has preserved its colours, and it’s a pleasure for the eyes, a pleasure losing in those shades of blue that soothe his soul and puts his heart at ease. He sketches everything, buildings and cars and people as small as ants, invading the canvas of the real world, invading the white before his eyes. His gaze lingers for a moment too long on the hospital before the ocean, and Keito’s heart jumps a bit, a gentle thud in the middle of his chest that reminds him that he shouldn’t forget about what he’s keeping hidden inside of himself. He sighs, shoulders dropping as he takes his palette and deepens his brush in a glass of water, that turns into an explosion of blue after the first strokes of colour on the canvas - everything around him vibrates, almost saturate, colours so bright to make his eyes hurt. 

He wonders how much he will resist, before he surrenders.

 

Eichi Tenshouin has the features of an angel, and the smile of a tempting snake. And Keito hates it, sometimes - he hates how the walls of the hospital room they’re in make him look too white, desperately in need of a touch of colour.    


He wants to paint on him, and turn him into a piece of art.    


“When are they sending you home?” he asks, looking at his eyes - that’s what he thinks about when the ocean demands to be sealed in the canvas, the vibrant note of green that spreads and taints the blue of Eichi’s eyes. Thin lips bend in a smile, and Keito already knows the answer.   


“I don’t know yet. They wanted to make some extra checks, just to be sure I won’t die as soon as I step outside this place. It’s boring, Keito. I want to go home.” He doesn’t like the tone of his voice, gloomy and sad and full of sorrowful notes that Keito would make disappear, if he could. Eichi shakes his head, and he’s not looking at Keito, he just avoid eye contact like he doesn’t want him to read what’s behind the sea of his irises. “You know,” he keeps talking then, voice soft - Keito wonders if it’s just a sensation, that he has lowered his voice together with his head; “I think I’m going to die soon.”   


“Idiot,” and he would keep going, if Eichi didn’t raise his head to look at him. The smile on his face is soft, calm as the ocean outside the window, and Keito finds himself hating it a bit because-    


“The world is turning dull.”

And those words make his heart jump on his throat. 

 

There is a legend, going around between the elders of the city, words travelling in the gentle breeze that blows from the ocean and spreads them above the heads of the people living there, at the feet of a mountain that cuts their city out the real world. It’s quite painful, at least to his ears, because it’s a legend about loss, about a power so strong that drains your eyes of the reason why the world doesn’t appear so boring. Real love is something powerful, a strength that intertwines with the strings of a heart unable to feel nothing but warmth pouring from every vessel, wetting body and soul with a sweet poison nobody can’t rid off, nobody can’t escape. But it requires energies to burn, something worth to act as a fuel for feelings that consume too much, that eat everything around them leaving the ground lifeless.    
Keito knows the legend is true.    


He doubted it was when he first heard about it, because the things elders talk about are always strange, always so out of the boredom of an ordinary life. But how can you not believe a silly story, when your sight turns black and white and grey in a moment, and gains back colour again whenever his eyes meet Eichi’s, or they’re far from him? It has always been like that, since they were children and he had to spend most of his time in the Tenshoin mansion to keep company to a little lord who was too bored to just lay in bed and wait for death to knock at his door. It was just a veil of dullness that faded the colours making them less saturated at first - the sky never vibrated when he was with Eichi, the ocean never was that blue that so much recalled his friend’s eyes. He never paid so much attention to it, anyway, at least until he heard those words carried by the wind on a summer day: he just thought that it was a mere trick of his mind.

It wasn’t.

The world gets desaturated, when they are together. He can barely recall the right colour of Eichi’s hair, now, because the more time passes, the more the environment around him takes the shades of an old movie, black and white and greys taking the place of blues, reds and greens.

It’s awful. It’s the proof of his love.

 

They are laying on the floor of Eichi’s hospital room, cold crossing their clothes and making their muscles shiver without control, when they relax too much. Keito knows he should tell Eichi to get back to his bed but he’s tired to fight against him, tired to repeat that he should take more care of himself, at least while he’s there. But Eichi is humming now, he is since he left the comfort of his bed to meet the cold of the floor, and Keito doesn’t really want to ruin his mood - there is still time, to be in pain and sad, there is still time to lecture him over his recklessness (will Eichi try to escape the hospital, if he scolds him for the umpteenth time?).

They turned the lights off, when the night started to take the first steps and painted the sky in deep blue and purple, and Keito is glad because this way he can pretend colours still make his world alive, he can pretend his heart isn’t winning over his mind - there is no much difference between the blue of the sky and the black that arrogantly invades his sight. The first stars appear in the sky, white dots flickering in a sea of petroleum.   


“I love the night,” Eichi whispers, raising his hand and pointing at the sky outside the closed window - he’s drawing something in the air, following the stars as if the sky was just a giant piece of paper, and his finger a pen drawing invisible lines to connect white dots in hope to make a discovery that will change their world.    


“Mh,” he just says, because Keito doesn’t want to open his heart, not yet.    
He doesn’t know if he’s ready to give up the flashes of colours his love has left him with - he doesn’t know if he’s ready to deprive himself of a world where it doesn’t matter if the sky is blue, or if flowers blooming in Spring create a rainbow hard to find something different from beautiful.    


He doesn’t know if he’s ready to forget the colour of Eichi’s hair for real.

“Do you want to know why, Keito?”   


No, he doesn’t. Whatever Eichi is going to say, he doesn’t want to know it, he doesn’t want to listen to what it is occupying his mind - he doesn’t want to have another reason to make his own world crumble into pieces. But he can’t stop him, he can’t tell him that Eichi needs to keep those words to himself because he is oh, so not ready.

“Mh,” he says again, the tone of his voice so plain, empty - he almost wishes to make Eichi desist, but the other chuckles and Keito can feel his head shaking against his own. 

“It’s because when the Sun set, I can pretend I am not losing my sight.”   


“Eichi, you-” 

He stops, when he pins an elbow to the floor and lifts his back enough to look at him through the faint light of the Moon - Eichi’s eyes are watery, grey like silver melting under a fire Keito wishes he could extinguish.    


“The world is turning dull,” he whispers, voice cracked and shaky. He’s not looking at him, now, his eyes glued to that sky that acts like a blanket, hiding them from the rest of the world - it’s an illusion Keito loves to lull himself into, as if the vastity of the Universe could really make him become a shadow. “It’s becoming dull, as if someone was washing away all its brilliancy, changing all the colours in grey. I am scared, Keito. I don’t want to die yet.”   


“You are not dying, Eichi.”

He’s sitting on his knees now, and as words leave his mouth he already regret pronouncing them. Eichi turns his head towards him, slowly, and as a tear rolls down his cheek Keito can see something changing in them - is he surprised, that he’s stating something like that with such certainty?   
Eichi’s arm is still stretched towards the sky, but it slowly bends towards Keito’s face, cold fingers brushing again cheeks which are burning in contrast, he only realises now. 

“How can you be so sure? It’s scary, you know? I can’t remember the shade of your eyes anymore. I can’t remember the colour of your hair. I don’t want to forget what you look like, I feel like my brain is collapsing and you’re the only thing I don’t want to let go. Sometimes my world becomes covered in dirt that I can’t wash away. If I am not dying then what is it?”

Silence falls for a moment that Keito perceives as eternal, self consciousness invading his body as Eichi lingers on that touch - now he really wants to know what kind of thoughts are crossing his mind, he really wants to know if the world around him is lacking any kind of colour as it is for him, now. Because the feeble memory of the green of Eichi’s shirt, of the colours of the flowers on his nightstand have been inglobed by a brush of dirt water that turned everything into grey. His heart is drumming inside his chest, pushing to be released, pushing to jump out of it any second, and Keito doesn’t know what to do.

He doesn’t know.   


He bends over Eichi, hands running around his head, and before his friend can say something else, Keito is pushing his forehead against the other’s one, eyes closed and lips so dry they almost hurt. Sharp breaths shake his lungs, and oh, he’s so going to lose it, so going to let the love he is holding inside his heart explode and spill out, the love he fought so much to keep it hidden.

“Tell me, Keito.”   


And his stomach twists, begging his owner to set that feeling who took his whole to grow free, to let his lips part and speak words of love, and condemnation. How can he be so selfish to steal the rainbow from Eichi’s eyes? Who is he to have such a great power on the tip of his tongue? A word, a kiss, and the world will be filtered through a veil of grey that they won’t be able to get rid of until they die. And he fights to restrain himself from ruin everything, but he is so weak to Eichi’s touch, and on the other hand his childhood friend is so eager, so selfish, to force him to disclose that secret as a rose that desperately tries to protect itself from the cruelty of the world with his thorns.    


“I-”   


He has no time, no, because Eichi is moving the threads of their story for him as well, looking for the back of Keito’s neck, sinking his slender, cold fingers in those locks of hair curling just above the collar of his shirt. It’s nothing more than a gentle push, but he should have known, he should have thought about how dangerous it would be to be this close, but he has no more time now - it has just run out, sand slipping through his fingers and falling on the ground before it turns into stardust.   


It’s just a brush of lips and nothing more, but it makes Keito’s eyes fill with tears, it makes him see the world turning a bit more dull, the light blue of the light just above Eichi’s head turning white, the flowers losing their touch of colour in a second.    


“If I have to die soon,” Eichi keeps talking, his words slipping between his lips like drops of honey that fill his stomach, shake it, and make him feel nauseate, “I want to know at least what you taste of.”   


“How many times do I have to tell you that you are not dying…” 

His voice is a mere whisper, a puff of wind that desperately tries not to disturb the quiet of the night. He can fight as much as he can, Keito, but it’s all useless, when his hands move on their own to finally reach Eichi’s cheeks, to cup that face that he holds so dear, and he’s going to ruin forever with kisses that will work as a switch - just a click, and they’ll have to say goodbye to the pink of skies at dawn, to the lilac of the flowers under Eichi’s room, to the baby blue of his eyes.    


“I don’t care if I am not dying yet,” he retorts then, but there’s a hint of a smile that Keito can’t really see, too close to Eichi’s face to grasp anything but his eyes, “I want to know.”

Keito wants to know, too. He is scared - to become unable to distinguish any colour and give his art a form, to steal that beauty from Eichi as well - but only God knows how much he wants to know. Giving up to that desire is a sin and a blessing at the same time, eyes closed and lips parting just enough to let Eichi do whatever he wants, if it’s just brushing or something deeper he doesn’t mind.   


He wants to know. 

 

“The world is dull, but that’s not a news. Most of the people I know are a bunch of idiots, anyway, so seeing them in black and white… it doesn’t bother me.” Eichi smiles, as he folds stripes of paper into tiny stars, stained with ink Keito can’t really distinguish which colour is. The bed is full of them, dots of grey in the white sky of Eichi’s blanket, and for a moment Keito feels inside a movie of the Fifties, one of those movies his mother loves to watch when his father falls asleep before the sun sets and he is too tired to keep her company. “You know, Keito. When I dream, I can still see them. It’s not that bad. It’s hard to keep them in mind, but if I focus I can still see them. They’re ghosts, dancing behind my eyelids, but why shouldn’t it be fine?” His eyes are focused on the stripe of paper on his knees, the pen in his hand writing something Keito can’t really see from the chair he is sitting on. “Giving up something like that for your love… it’s worth it. The world is still a beautiful place, after all, because my feelings for you compensates for the lack of colour. Would a world without Keito’s love be worth living? Let me give you the answer.” His fingers hold the stripe for a second, as he reads the text on it - his smile widens, a crescent moon made of rose petals shining on his face, and then he folds the paper, pushes against its side and oh, another star is born. “No. It wouldn’t be worth living.”   


The star drops from his palm into that sea of paper between his legs, and Keito wonders how many of them he has already folded - he wonders what’s inside them, what secret they are holding dear.   


He wants to know.   


“What are you writing on them?”   


Eichi chuckles, muffling his laugh behind a fist. “It’s my wish. I shouldn’t tell you, but since it’s Keito asking for it, I’ll let you know.”   


Eichi takes one of the stars, kissing it before he lets it fall on Keito’s hand. Keito looks at him, and doesn’t divert his eyes from his face as he unfolds the paper, killing a star, wondering for a moment if he’s killing Eichi’s wish with it. 

He reads, and his heart clutches.

_ I don’t want to see colours for the rest of my life. _   
  
He still sees colour in his dreams, Eichi is right. Love has taken them from the world he lives in everyday, but his dreamlike world hasn’t be affected by it - not yet, at least. He will probably have to part with them soon, when his mind will be too tired to remember all those shades of blue and red, when his brain will stop storing his memories of green fields and yellow sunflowers spreading through them.    


Sometimes, he wishes his mind was blind already.    


Blood is still red between his fingers, shiny and angry, a wine that only tasted of iron spreading through his clothes, wetting his neck, his face, his lips. Eichi’s hair is still clean, blonde, almost white under the dim light coming from the window of his hospital room - and it contrasts so well, with that crimson, that wasn’t that Eichi’s blood, Keito would define it as beautiful. 

He often drowns in blood, its taste invading his mouth like poison, slipping on his throat just to reach his stomach and make it burn. Eichi smiles, lips wearing the worst of lipsticks, and his voice is just the rattle of a beast ready to pass away. Keito wants to scream, wants to call his name, but the only thing leaving his throat is a bubble of blood and air that explodes just behind his tongue, leaving him breathless.    


He would give his life, for him. He has already given up on something precious just for the sake of their feelings, drive by Eichi’s selfishness - as if he could really blame it all on him, on his curiosity, on that hunger that makes him eat whatever meets his mouth, whatever touches his hands.    


Red is the colour he still remember the most, hearts throbbing and blood rolling down his hands like ruby beads. He wakes up screaming every night, drenched in sweat, with that silly muscle on his chest that beats and knocks on his chest and asking to be freed. It always takes a  moment, to realise that there’s no blood wetting his palms, no red piercing furiously in that sea of greys and blacks and white that have turned his world in a old picture.   


Sometimes, the thought of being blind to any shade of colour comforts him, because the moment he will regain that power will be the day he will wish to die.

 

“Do you ever wonder what would happen, if you were to lose your soulmate?” Eichi’s face is relaxed, turned towards a window that reflects the Sun, the sky of a soft grey that often reminds Keito of winter, of snow ready to fall heavily and cover everything it meets on the road. “If you were to lose me?”   


“No,” and his answer is so sincere - a bit too fast, maybe - because well, that’s the last thing he would want to think of, since his mind overworks the thought way too much when his eyes close and he wishes for nothing but a sleep without dreams. 

“Would your world be still black and white, when I die?”

“Eichi, please. Stop. I don’t want to talk about it.”   


“But Keito,” and Eichi’s face moves slowly, sinking on the pillow he’s resting on as he looks at him with pale eyes - did they look more like the sky or like the ocean? He can’t recall. He hates it. “If love was a condemnation, and this was our punishment, wouldn’t be only fair for you to see colours again the moment I’m gone?”   


“I don’t know. And I don’t care.”   


“Are you scared to know?”   


He wants to delete that smile from that face, rip it off and throw it in the ocean, watch it sink, die and dissolve into foam. God, Keito hates him sometimes, he hates Eichi when he doesn’t stop just because he loves to see his feeling blossoming on his face like flowers - who cares if he has to make him angry to make them bloom.    


“Wouldn’t you?”   


Keito doesn’t know if Eichi’s cough is a laugh bad hidden or the omen of a coming disaster, but when he sees him relaxing against the pillow he feels like he can start to breathe again as well.    


“Of course I would. Colours mean nothing to me, not when I can open my eyes and still see your face, and know you belong to me. Exchanging what I hide in my heart with something like this isn’t a burden, I already told you. But… I think I couldn’t bear it, if you were to die before I do. I don’t need to see colours again, if that was the case, when you’re six feet under and I can’t look at you with my own eyes.” 

Keito bites his lower lip, looking everywhere but towards Eichi - the floor is way more interesting, willing to welcome the screams filling his head. He doesn’t want to think about it, and still now he can almost see red on his hands, as Eichi gives another cough.   


He doesn’t want to know, because he isn’t ready.

 

Smells are stronger, now that his eyes don’t need to process anything more than shades of black and white, now that his brain has been forced to adjust to a binary world made of two non-colours and work less. His others senses are sharper - his hearing already was, but now that he is getting used to his new condition, Keito notices how everything around him has acquired a new form, and with that, a new meaning.    


It feels good, being at home with Eichi. It’s something that hasn’t happened in a while, feeling his childhood friend’s body leaning over his shoulder, a cascade of platinum hair contrasting with the black of his shirt. There is warm, spreading from that point and through his whole body, while the breeze of a dying autumn brushes against his cheeks. 

It’s been hours, since it started raining, and the air is filled with the usual, white melody brought by the rain, water travelling along the gutter before it gently falls on the  _ kusaridoi _ .    


It’s nice. It feels like home.    


Keito turns his head and sinks with his nose on Eichi’s hair, basking in its softness and breathing the soft scent of shampoo. There is a soft humming, coming from Eichi’s throat, and for a moment, just for a moment, Keito can see colours behind his eyelids, behind the comfort of a forced night given to him by his own eyes closed - there are flashes of light, bright, yellows and greens exploding like fireworks that dance following Eichi’s voice and get absorbed by the darkness like an ephemeral dream. When he comes back to reality, the world hasn’t gained any colour, but it almost feel fine, after all. At least, until the sweet sound coming from Eichi abruptly interrupts, scattered into pieces by a cough, followed by another one, followed by another one. Keito’s heart always beats a bit faster, when those fits catch the both of them unprepared, but Eichi just raises his hand and stops him before he can even say something, shaking his head. 

“I am fine,” he says, a shy smiles on lips that Keito wonders which colour are now, if they are red because of the fever, or if they are slowly turning that shade of purple that belongs to the realm of dead. It hurts, not to know.

It scares him.    


But there is nothing more he can do than pulling the blanket around their shoulders a bit more to cover Eichi better, sacrificing his side to wrap it around that fragile body, and as Eichi snuzzles on his neck rain starts pouring, so intense that for a moment it’s hard to see what’s behind the wall of water.    
Eichi rests his head against his shoulder, again, and Keito just wants to stop time.    


“You know,” and God, when Eichi starts a sentence with  _ you know _ , Keito knows it’s something he is almost sure he doesn't want to listen , "lately I really enjoy the rain.”

“And is there any particular reason behind it?”   


Keito’s hand moves on his own, retracing Eichi’s spine and stopping on his neck, fingers playing with those locks sticking to his sweaty neck. They shouldn’t stay there, at the mercy of a weather that doesn’t show any pity - they should go inside, under the warmth of a kotatsu that they both would surely enjoy more. But Eichi clings to his arm, squeezing it a bit, and Keito knows there is a message behind that gesture, but he is not sure he should listen to it, now.

“Mhmh,” Eichi answers, bending his head a bit, eyes drifting between the flowers of the garden and the path of pebbles that goes around Keito’s house and leads to the back of the temple. He takes a moment, before speaking again, filled with the sound of water against the cold metal of the  _ kusaridoi. _ “When it rains, there is not really a difference between how we saw the world before and how we see it now. The shade of grey the weather casts over the world when the sky wants to cry… it’s the same for everyone, after all. Maybe love is meant to be like this, dull and grey and soothing. It’s comforting, isn’t it? The thought of it. Rainy days are lovely, after all. I really want to kiss you under the rain. I would, if I felt better.”

Chuckles aren’t sounds Keito allows himself to let go that easily, but that feels like a special occasion, somehow. It’s a warm sound, unexpectedly so, at least he imagine it to be since Eichi raises his head to look at him, eyes shiny with fever and a touch of… something Keito can’t really define, but it looks like happiness.

“You don’t have to kiss me under the rain, you know.”   


“Of course I do. But it sounds more romantic. What if I was to die tomorrow? You wouldn’t let me die with such a big regret, would you?”

Keito is torn between scolding him and actually make him happy, and please him - because Eichi’s words aren’t accidental, because Keito knows the chance of that happening isn’t that far from reality. He sighs, shaking his head.   


“I’m sorry. I guess I’ll live with that guilt.”   


“Awful. But...” There is the soft rumbling of a thunder in the distance, that fades and disappears in a matter of seconds, swallowed by the sound of the rain against the rooftop. “I really want to kiss you now.”   


Keito doesn’t answer, no. Rain falls with more intensity, pouring above their heads and slipping inside his heart to fill him with love, pain, he doesn’t know, he can’t distinguish. 

Breathing is a bit hard, at least not without making air shake on his nostrils, down his trachea - but he tilts his head nonetheless, brushing Eichi’s lips with his own and closing his eyes. And when Eichi smiles against him, parting his lips and teasing him a bit with the tip of his tongue, the taste of meds lingers there but Keito decides stubbornly to ignore it, and focus on something else - on the softness of Eichi’s tongue, on the sweet sigh that escapes his throat when Keito gently brushes against the roof of his mouth. 

Eichi’s skin burns against the tip of his fingers, but he must resist the urge to stop, must resist the urge to pull back and look at his eyes in a disastrous attempt to see at least a reminiscence of the blue of his eyes. The kindness of those cold fingers against his cheeks make him stiffen for a second, and it costs him so much, because he can clearly feel his eyes stinging, now.     


“Keito? What’s wrong?”   


It’s almost ironic, to be asked that question when he should be the one worrying over Eichi, but maybe that’s the reason why he can’t open his eyes and let the tears flow - he’s holding so much inside, fear feeding on the things he has lost, and those he’s too scared to lose soon. It pours out despite his struggle to keep that façade, and it’s too late when he finds out that he’s failing at desperately grasping at it. Eichi’s thumbs are soft against his skin, pleasantly cold, clemency coming directly from his hands.   


“Don’t cry, Keito. It’ll be fine.”

He wishes he could believe him.

 

He still tries to paint, sometimes, when the Sun is bright enough to help him distinguish between colours, his work based only on instinct as he looks at his palette and decides which are the shades he needs without really knowing what he is doing. He often mistakes blues and greens, so his brother said once looking at the canvas - it was almost hilarious, figuring out the first credible lie in less than five seconds just to hide him the truth, and coming with just a “art is art, you should never question its reasons.”   
He doesn’t think he is ready to tell him the truth.    


Sometimes, he wishes he could see what he’s doing, if the mess on the canvas is just a reflection of the mess ruling inside his heart. Sometimes, he wishes he would never see it, he wishes colours just stayed in the castle of memories he has on his mind.    


Sometimes, it doesn’t matter what he wishes for, because Fate decides for him, decides for everyone, and leaves him with a dry mouth and a heart racing so fast he could probably die.    


He’s not ready. He’s not ready at all, not when he’s starting to understand himself, not when Eichi is starting to envelope his heart with buds of cherry blossoms and warmth. He’s not ready to that spurt of light green that perforates his sight and burns his eyes, bright and vivid like the memories he has of the sea. The brush falls on the ground and 

it’s a moment, before everything starts to turn to grey again, slowly, so slowly that Keito doesn’t even notice he starts to pray the moment he gets his stuff on his bag, and starts to run faster than he has ever done.    
  


 

The strong scent of antiseptic makes his stomach twist, nausea quickly invading his oesophagus and running up to his throat. He breathes, slowly, trying to gain back at least bit of control over his body, even if at the moment it looks like the hardest thing to do - each breath he takes is a living torture, because air never burnt like that inside his lungs. The nurse at the reception looks at him in pity, shaking her head with a gentle smile that Keito doesn’t like at all, doesn’t want to read as a loss of faith he should give up to as well. He steps towards the hallway, arrogantly ignoring the fact that the green of the walls is pale but present, mixed with the grey he grew so familiar with.    


He’s scared.    


His gesture are almost automatic, and step after step he just walks through a path he did a thousand times since he was a child - elevator, third floor, the seventh room of the left wing. There’s something comforting in knowing that he doesn’t have to mind where he is going, because his own feet move on their own out of habit, leaving his mind free to wander on unstepped lands.   


Well. That’s not really comforting. His heart is giving him an awful background music, drumming in his ears with brutality, and everything is weightening so much on his shoulders that he feels like he might throw up soon.   


He must hold on. He must endure.    


When he gets to Eichi’s door, his name on its side like the label of a doorbell, Keito stops and holds his breath. He wants to be brave, he needs to be brave, but his heart is giving up, and his eyes are filling with tears that he doesn’t want to let go.

“It’s all fine,” he whispers to himself, biting his lips to make pain hold him in the realm of reason before he starts to panic.  _ He is still here _ .

The door creaks, when he opens it; there is no one inside, if not for the only one he expected to find, head turned towards the window - Eichi’s mouth is covered with an oxygen mask, but the only thing Keito registers as he steps into the room is the slow  _ beep _ of the machine monitoring his heart activity. He wonders if a heart can really beat so slowly, as he closes the door and takes the first steps towards the bed, sitting on the chair right next to it.    


Eichi is sleeping, eyes closed and something like a smile beneath the green plastic of the oxygen mask. He’s always been like that, hasn’t he, so ready to face death whenever he knocks at his door, but it’s not the same for him, no. He never got used to the idea of letting him go, and now that he can perceive a hint of gold in that silver that colours Eichi’s hair, Keito feels like time is running way too fast, and he can’t catch up. When he raises his hand, touching Eichi’s arm with a gentle brush, he’s scared to feel how much his skin is burning - Eichi’s neck is wet with beads of sweat, but his face is so relaxed that Keito struggles to believe he’s in pain, he’s-

He doesn’t want to think about it.    


He lowers his eyes on his own hand, on the thumb rubbing against Eichi’s arm, right under the needle abusing his skin and making it red. He notices just now, how his legs are trembling, weary for the run, weary for the anxiety building on his chest, cutting air on his lungs; there is a knot on his throat, pushing to be untied, begging to melt and turn into water, but Keito is so stoic, so stubborn, and he can only keep tormenting his lip in hope that pain will make his mind numb, at least for a moment.    


It doesn’t work. 

He doesn’t even know when he starts to cry, why his will to hold back tears falters and disappears into the first hiccup escaping his mouth - he never cries, at least not when he is sharing the same room as Eichi, not when he feels like he should conceal his own feeling for the sake of his love. Tears mingle those fleeble colours before his eyes, making them a mess of whites and desaturated greens, mostly, Keito can’t really recognize it, he doesn’t care when the only thought fast invading his mind is  _ he’s going to leave me behind, he’s going to die, and I can’t avoid it _ . He lived with that nightmare for most of his life, since Eichi stepped on the grounds of his family’s temple and smiled at him, calling him with that silly nickname that Keito doesn’t like at all - angels of death are not merciful, they can’t show pity, they can’t decide to disobey the Almighty’s rules and make mortals live a bit longer than what Fate had in stone for them. He made that fear a companion, he took its hand when he felt at the worst, because he needed something to beg, something to implore, plea after plea leaving his mouth with a broken voice. He sobs, like a child lost in a forest, hopeless as fear invades his blood and turns it into something so thick that will probably kill him soon.

He wonders if he can stop feeling all that sorrow.    


He doesn’t even notice Eichi is moving unless something cold touches his hand, and Keito raises his head so fast that it spins, for a moment - and now he can’t hide anywhere, he can’t stop the flow, he can’t save Eichi from that pitiful sight, nose running and eyes slowly turning red.    


Eichi is smiling, tired under his disheveled bangs. And still, his eyes don’t smile at all.   


He doesn’t want to see what colour his hair is, he doesn’t want to meet the baby blue of his eyes, not now, not like this.   


“Don’t cry, Keito.”   
  


 

The canvas in front of him is still white, blank like his mind in that very moment; free from the weight of thoughts that, otherwise, would make just holding a brush an hard task. He is not sure he’ll be able to fill it with colours, staining his palette with green and blue that remind him too much of those eyes that won’t open for him anymore, of the sea in front of him, ready to welcome him on its arm whenever he wants. His heart bleeds, wounding his chest at each heartbeat, giving him a pain that hasn’t alleviated even after all those days, hours spent mourning a pile of ashes that has the colour of his love, burnt and destined to get lost in the wind. There is no cure for his illness, no filter for those colours that shine too bright in front of his eyes, smacking his face so hard that he wouldn’t be surprised, if his skin broke and he started to bleed.    


A world without Eichi is not a world worth living. 

He sighs, leaving the empty canvas to fall on the ground, arms and legs spread on the grass, making him look like a starfish out of water. 

The sky is so blue that his eyes hurt, and for a brief moment he wonders when pain will start to be a comforting friend, more than a presence trying to kill him every time he inhales, every time he reminds himself of the love he once had, and that now has lost. 

 

“Don’t cry, Keito. Even if this is the end, even if I won’t be here with you tomorrow, there is no need to cry. You’ll find me where I’ve always been, locked inside your heart, inside your mind. I will be with you wherever you go, I’ll never leave you as long as you won’t forget about me. Please, don’t forget about me, Keito. Let my ghost haunt you, mh? Let me be selfish, just for this last time, make me stay with you. You made me feel alive. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [maybe love is meant to be like this](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10443801) by [bao (sunwukong)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunwukong/pseuds/bao)




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